Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the general art of the transportation of freight, more specifically the transportation of cars using handling pallets.
More specifically, the invention relates to an independent, removable, load-bearing, handling and transportation pallet, destined to be loaded onto a specific road or rail car-carrying vehicle, for example a truck, a van, a trailer, a semitrailer, an articulated convoy or a wagon, or even a transportation container, itself placed for example on a semitrailer, a container carrier or a wagon.
Description of Related Art
Conventional car-carrying vehicles are generally equipped with a set of plates, known as individual plates because they are each designed to support a car. These platforms are movable and tiltable within the loading space, to optimize the filling of the car-carrier vehicles and thus increase the overall transportation capacity, by making the best use of the shapes and sizes of adjacent cars.
This is for example the case of the semitrailer disclosed in the patent application AU 2008 229 867 which conventionally includes a movable top plate and a bottom plate. To optimize the filling, the bottom plate comprises a motorized platform, which may move between a loading/unloading position and a tilted transportation position.
However, this movable platform, like all the other platforms of the semitrailer described, is inseparable from the semitrailer and cannot be removed from the semitrailer to be placed on the ground. The semitrailer is thus loaded in a conventional manner using the movement capabilities of each of the cars to be transported, which are introduced one by one through the rear of the semitrailer and roll on ramps and tracks up to their final transportation location.
To shorten and facilitate the loading/unloading of cars onto the car-carrier vehicles and to prevent operators from having to mount and move within the vehicle loading space, different vehicles have been developed, for which the loading space remains completely free and is only delimited by two side walls, and which are designed to carry “palletized cars”.
In these vehicles, the cars are loaded using independent, removable, handling and transportation pallets, which are placed on the ground outside of the vehicle and a car is placed on each of them. Once strapped in, the pallet/car assembly is then loaded onto the car-carrier vehicle by a robot or a motorized manipulator, preferably automated. The pallet is then attached to the side walls of the car-carrying vehicle in the position and with the tilt that are the most suitable for optimizing the filling of the car-carrying vehicle. Once attached to the walls of the car-carrying vehicle, each of these removable pallets plays the role of an individual platform.
These handling pallets are thus independent and removable structures, which are distinct and separated from the transportation vehicle and the handling apparatus. They do not constitute a vehicle equipment, but rather an accessory of the load (the car) they carry.
In general, the handling pallets are means destined to carry a load. Their structure is designed to allow for the handling and transportation of the pallet with its load, which frees the user from directly handling the goods.
They are thus particularly advantageous for the transportation of cars, which are very delicate to grip for direct handling. In fact, they are indivisible, particularly fragile, high-value goods the integrity and aesthetics of which must absolutely be preserved during handling and transportation.
With such a system, it is not directly the car but rather the assembly formed by the pallet and its load, i.e. the “palletized car”, that is handled, carried and moved up to the interior of the transportation vehicle.
The invention relates to independent, removable, handling pallets of this type.
Such pallets have for example been disclosed in the earlier patent U.S. Pat. No. 5,525,026.
The pallets described in this document typically include four flat and substantially rectangular wheel supports, arranged at the four corners of the pallet. When a car is loaded onto this pallet, each of its wheels is supposed to rest on one of these wheel supports.
The problem is that cars have different outlines depending on the model. They have thus a wheelbase (the distance between the front axle and the rear axle of the vehicle), a track (the distance between the two wheels on the same axle) and a wheel diameter that varies depending on the model. Small cars typically have a short wheelbase and a short track, with wheels of small diameters of about 530 mm for example, while in contrast large vehicles have a long wheelbase and a long track, with wheels of much larger diameters up to 800 mm for a limousine or an SUV, and all intermediate configurations are also possible.
However, the pallets described in the prior art have reception structures for the wheels, that are fixed and neither adjustable nor adaptable. These pallets therefore cannot automatically adapt to the different outlines of the cars they are supposed to carry.
Specific pallets of appropriate dimensions must be used depending on the type of cars that are desired to be transported. Different pallet models must therefore be provided as needed, which generates significant additional costs relating to the purchasing of different sets of palettes, and complicates the storage and management of pallet inventories.